Simon Hoggart's week: The risks of being a Big Society volunteer

Timothy West and Prunella Scales: fell in love while both doing an Araucaria crossword. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

✒ Now we know that the "big society" means, in part at least, us volunteering to do work which would normally done by professionals paid through our taxes. I am reminded of the most famous quatrain by Hilaire Belloc, himself no socialist or deficit denier:

Lord Finchley tried to mend the electric light

Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!

It is the business of the wealthy man

To give employment to the artisan.

Not many artisan jobs kicking around now.

✒ Things that obsess the media but hold no interest whatever for me: London fashion week; whether Camilla will be made queen; the identity of the latest celebrity with a super-injunction to stop the papers revealing their indiscretions; the names of the next I'm A Celebrity contestants; whether Bruce Forsyth will get a knighthood; and absolutely anything that Jordan – Katie Price – has done, is doing, or will ever do.

✒ There was a really nice party at the Guardian this week for Araucaria – John Graham – Britain's best-loved crossword compiler. John, who was 90 on Wednesday, wore a badge like one of those on children's birthday cards. It said "I'm 90". Timothy West and Prunella Scales were there, and in a very funny speech West described how he and Scales had met and fallen in love while both doing an Araucaria crossword. Alan Rusbridger, the editor, pointed out that after 53 years John had lasted longer as a contributor than either Neville Cardus or Alistair Cooke. His very first 1 Across was "Establishment cut to the bone (8,5)". Skeleton staff, of course.

There was a birthday cake, and a celebratory crossword compiled by Paul, Shed and Enigmatist – you might have tackled it on Wednesday. They were each presented with a grid filled with answers and had to produce clues for all of them. Then they voted on which was the best for each word. The crossword world is pretty rivalrous, and it's a great tribute to John that so many other compilers turned up. Today in Cambridge is the big celebration lunch for fans.

✒ I hadn't realised how finding anachronisms in The King's Speech had become a sort of national hobby. Everyone by now seems to have noticed that Churchill was on Edward VIII's side, not the loyal supporter of Bertie we see in the film, and that seamless stockings did not yet exist.

But Willie Montgomery Stack is what some people might call a King's Speech anorak. He has found umpteen more errors. For example, early on we learn that the Duke of York's speech will be transmitted on the Empire Service – which didn't exist until seven years later. An engineer tells the Duke "we're live" but all radio was live then – he'd have said "we're on air". The telephone in the transmission suite was not manufactured until four years later.

And the scene where the Duke listens to music on headphones. Impossible! In headphones he'd have been the only person in the room who couldn't hear it. Of course we also now know that Lionel Logue, far from occupying in a small house in a dark street with grimy urchins playing outside, actually lived in The Boltons, perhaps the poshest street in Kensington.

✒ Your crop of crazy labels gets bigger every week. David Reynolds bought a razor at Superdrug, marked "suitable for vegans and vegetarians". But, as he points out, there are no cooking instructions. Suzannah Dunn bought a nasal spray which stated: "Do not sue Vicks Sinex for more than seven days without medical advice."

Graham Larkbey bought some Costa coarse sea salt, which is, apparently, "not suitable for those on a low-salt diet". And June and John Dobai sent in the leaflet from a box of Actavis quinine sulphate tablets. It warns of side effects, which may include "abdominal pains, diarrhoea, nausea, blindness, ringing in the ears, irregular heart beats and death. If these occur, treatment should be stopped and a doctor contacted straight away."

✒ Thanks for your further horror stories from the trains. Catherine Markey got news that her father was on the brink of death in Liverpool. So she dashed to Euston station, London, bought an off-peak return ticket for £70 and boarded a train which left just after 3pm.

What she didn't know was that, Virgin Trains has extended the peak period in both directions, so that her train ludicrously required the full fare.

She explained about her father, but the ticket inspector said "I don't make the rules" and charged her £130 extra. Don't you hate them? She now loathes Virgin so much that she will drive a 400-mile round trip rather than pay them another penny.

✒It's a measure of how much loved Linda Smith was that, even five years after her death from cancer, there are to be two more tribute concerts to her, with comedians such as Rory Bremner, Jo Brand, Sandi Toksvig, Rich Hall and Maureen Lipman.

The shows will be on Sundays 27 February and 6 March, different cast for each performance, all proceeds to Target Ovarian Cancer. Rose Theatre, Kingston upon Thames – book through rosetheatrekingston.org.